The Muppet Movie

Most television shows that make the jump directly to the big screen seem to also carry an inside-jokeyness about them -- at least, the best have (South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, Strange Brew and the '60s pop art Batman). In so many ways, they announce to the audience that what you are now seeing is a film, not a TV show (though Batman is the closest to an actual long episode of the show). The Muppet Movie from 1979, in terms of postmodern meta-ness, is as self-referentially meta as a film can get. Like Strange Brew, it begins with a screening of the movie you are about to see. (Strange Brew’s is actually a homemade version before the actual film begins). As the world-famous Muppets sit in a packed screening room, eager to watch their own autobiographical movie, self-serious Sam the Eagle delivers one of the film's best deadpan lines when he asks Kermit, “Does this film have socially redeeming value?” And strangely we later find out, it does. What a perfect gem it proves to be because, like the syndicated TV series from which it sprang, The Muppet Show, the film version works perfectly as a good time for kids and for adults as a first-class musical.

Instead of the less cinematic story of how an inventive puppeteer named Jim Henson got together with a group of educators at the germinal government-sponsored PBS and created Sesame Street (which later begot The Muppet Show), this movie takes more inventive creative license to tell the Muppets' origin story. One day, while playing banjo in a swamp, Kermit The Frog was spotted by a Hollywood type (Dom DeLuise) who tells him about an opening in the picture business. So Kermit sets out for Los Angeles. On the way, he is joined by a Bob Hope wannabe bear named Fozzie and it becomes a road picture. Their crew keeps getting bigger as they are joined by a creature called Gonzo and his chicken girlfriend as well as the rock band Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem. The film really jumps up a notch when they meet Miss Piggy. She and Kermit have electric chemistry but her ambition throws some curves into their fledgling relationship. She is the most interesting Muppet because while most of her peers are kind-hearted and giving, she is completely selfish and self-absorbed (and obviously based on Barbra Streisand). Meanwhile, Kermit is pursued by a Colonel Sanders-type fast food entrepreneur named Doc Hopper (the great Charles Durning) who will stop at nothing to get Kermit to be the spokes-frog for his new chain of frog-leg restaurants.